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- Light and the subtler light of wizard fire,
- And winds that strike forth hope on some grand lyre,
- And spirits of blue air like April clouds,
- And all the water-company that crowds
- The river-spaces and dark open sea,
- Conspired at his creation: Liberty,
- Watching his prowess from her tower above,
- Took to her side a royal-wingèd Love.
- And when he died and they could do no more
- To strengthen him who graced that southern shore
- They bade a clearer, stronger sun arise
- And drive old darkness from the Italian skies.
• • •
- Many there be to-day whose foolish praise
- Has dulled the roar of thy old fighting days,
- So that thy hymns of intellectual joy
- Seem but fine utterance of a wayward boy,
- Thy call of war, thy thunderbolts of hate
- A madman's cry, that rails against his fate;
- Who find in them a vague and phantom truth
- Or dim ideal of a lovelorn youth.
• • •
- He was too beautiful; he died too young,
- Before the mellow season of his prime;
- Sweet songs he left, but sweeter songs unsung,
- Whose thin ghosts wander out of space and time.
- All his philosophy was Love and Hate,
- His life a rainbow for the sun to fashion,
- His thoughts most royally importunate,
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